If this is your first visit, be sure to
check out the FAQ by clicking the
link above. You may have to register
before you can post: click the register link above to proceed. To start viewing messages,
select the forum that you want to visit from the selection below.

INTERNET TEST: 24-bit vs. 16-bit Audio Blind Test...

It's "live" :-). Simple question... Can you tell the difference between 24/96 and 16/96 (encapsulated in 24/96 container) audio? Is there merit to 24-bit being necessary/beneficial for home audio reproduction?

Thanks for some of you who participated on the "beta test" over the last week.

Feel free to have audiophile friends give it a shot and let me know on the survey site!

It's "live" :-). Simple question... Can you tell the difference between 24/96 and 16/96 (encapsulated in 24/96 container) audio? Is there merit to 24-bit being necessary/beneficial for home audio reproduction?

It would also be interesting to see a comparison between 24/96 and 16/44, being the two most contrasted forms. Has this already been done?

It would also be interesting to see a comparison between 24/96 and 16/44, being the two most contrasted forms. Has this already been done?

First i want to thank Archimago for all the work he does lately to illustrate audio knowledge for all to understand easy and colorful!

In all these tests unfortunately will be people knowing how to use a wav editor to do their analysis. Afterwards, when they know by analyzing they just create interesting sounding buzzwords how they found out by listening.
With 16/44.1 against 24/96 even the noobest noob will be able to identify it. This makes such an open listening test pretty pointless.
Even in this nice test Archimago did set up people can cheat pretty easily. Archimago seems to have much more faith in humanity than me i guess

One short story related to this debate. On another forum is going a thread of how to find out HiRes is worth it and on several pages they try to find a HiRes release against a cd version to test. No one has the idea to just downsample the HiRes release, lol!

Most audiophiles think ABX testing is worthless. Why would they want to ABX these samples? It's like telling an atheist to try praying to some god or another and seeing if they get any results.

I'm also not sure what exactly the point would be of encoding them both at 24/96 when many people think that the 96 kHz encoding itself is detrimental to sound quality. That includes many audiophiles who prefer 44.1 kHz.

Good luck with this test. I imagine you'll get quite a few people who are already convinced that hi-res audio is a scam and will come back and confirm to you there's absolutely no difference.

Most audiophiles think ABX testing is worthless. Why would they want to ABX these samples? It's like telling an atheist to try praying to some god or another and seeing if they get any results.

I'm also not sure what exactly the point would be of encoding them both at 24/96 when many people think that the 96 kHz encoding itself is detrimental to sound quality. That includes many audiophiles who prefer 44.1 kHz.

Good luck with this test. I imagine you'll get quite a few people who are already convinced that hi-res audio is a scam and will come back and confirm to you there's absolutely no difference.

Wow... When did "many audiophiles" prefer 44.1kHz and think 96kHz would be detrimental!? Monty's well known page about 192kHz makes sense and certainly you can get some intermodulation distortion with that much overhead; but I think most reasonable audiophiles / engineers would consider 24/96kHz about the sweet spot for maintaining the highest quality and reasonable file size. The reason to keep at 96kHz is precisely because that is the sweet spot IMO and most DACs measure exceptionally well with that sample rate these days plus the effects of digital filtering is reduced compared to 44/48kHz given that extra octave.

Well, as Wombat states, I do have a little more faith in humanity :-).

My main interest is *not* to show proof to the audiophiles although the task of exploration for answers I hope will resonate with the group. To be honest, the faithful are a small percentage and as you indicate, unlikely to change (granted I know a few have converted to the "more objective" side in the last year!). However, my sense is that those guys are diminishing as a group. Each year that goes by, I think their influence will diminish for many reasons I won't go into here. I'm more interested in opening up a discussion and an opportunity to the folks just starting to "get into" audio and the whole idea of high-resolution.

For now, the "ship has sailed". The test has begun, and it's great to see the detailed responses people have entered already. I hope this provides an opportunity for those who are not as technical to experience the "difference" for themselves and contribute to a body of data which can at least try to answer whether larger file size, and higher expense would be audibly beneficial.

---

Yes, the reason I would not do an Internet 44kHz vs. 96kHz test is that it's way too easy to spot the difference using simple tools. I have some faith in humanity; but not *that* much :-). The only way to try something like that is with controlled testing in one's home / listening room with test subjects.

As for advertising on other boards, I encourage folks to pass the link around! I do go to other boards as well and over the weeks will put in similar posts like this one... I figure we have 2 months. So as not to hammer my FTP site, I figure I'll just let the visitors to the blog and this forum have the first crack at it! And let the natural Internet diffusion happen...

Most audiophiles think ABX testing is worthless. Why would they want to ABX these samples? It's like telling an atheist to try praying to some god or another and seeing if they get any results.

I already had one person that was convinced it is easy to spot a difference and on the first sample he already got pretty confused

Originally Posted by JJZolx

I'm also not sure what exactly the point would be of encoding them both at 24/96 when many people think that the 96 kHz encoding itself is detrimental to sound quality. That includes many audiophiles who prefer 44.1 kHz.

First comes bit-depth, on judgement day comes samplerate and then we rule the world!!

Originally Posted by JJZolx

Good luck with this test. I imagine you'll get quite a few people who are already convinced that hi-res audio is a scam and will come back and confirm to you there's absolutely no difference.